Practical Management Science 4th Edition, Winston and Albright

Practical Management Science 4th Edition by Wayne L. Winston and S. Christian Albright uses an active-learning approach and realistic problems that will help you perceive and reap the benefits of the power of spreadsheet modeling.

With real examples and issues drawn from finance, marketing, and operations research, you will easily come to see how management science applies to your chosen occupation and how you can use it on the job. The authors emphasize modeling over algebraic formulations and memorization of specific models. This text takes an energetic-studying method, offering numerous examples and problems so students can practice extensively with a concept before shifting on.

The forms of issues--talent-building, ability-extending, modeling, and circumstances--are graded inside sections and chapters to help instructors assign homework. One other important feature is the way in which that the text integrates modeling into all useful areas of business: finance, marketing, operations management using real examples and real data.

The text emphasizes modeling over algebraic formulations and memorization of specific models. Shell files are additionally provided so that instructors can provide students as a lot or as little data as they need. This edition has been revised to be compatible with Excel 2010 and the corresponding add-ins for Excel 2010.

Modeling skills are emphasized through the use of Microsoft® Excel and are incorporated throughout the text. The use of spreadsheets allows students of varying mathematical backgrounds to build skills as they work through sophisticated problems. Old chapters 9 (Multiobjective Decision Making) and 15 (Project Management) are now offered online, and the balance of chapters have been renumbered accordingly.

In the first optimization chapter, Chapter 3, the authors replaced the introductory two-variable diet model with a simpler two-variable product mix model. Then they follow it up with a larger version of the same basic product mix model. These revisions should make the introduction to optimization easier for instructors to teach and for students to follow.

In the regression and forecasting chapter, now numbered Chapter 14, the authors discontinued the use of the Analysis Toolpak and jumped directly into the Palisade StatTools add-in. The authors have updated and refined examples, cases, and problems. This edition also offers pedagogical tools to help students and instructors. More and better exercises have been added to help students grasp concepts.

Professional add-ins provides students with the most up-to-date tools for solving problems. Now included are Palisade Decision Tools Suite (@RISK, StatTools, PrecisionTree, TopRank, RISKOptimizer, NeuralTools, and Evolver) and SolverTable, which allows users to do sensitivity analysis. Interdisciplinary examples and problems from finance, marketing, and operations research--covering topics such as portfolio selection, options, pricing models, and many others--keep student interest at a high level throughout the course.

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